The increasing costs of fuel for transportation are hampering development of rural communities in developing countries, but an interdisciplinary team of Cornell scientists believes they may have found a sustainable solution: biochar.

The group of soil scientists, engineers and economists are on the cusp of harnessing the power of organic material to fuel an entire village in Kenya.

Launched last year after a $5 million donation to Cornell's David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future from energy expert Yossie Hollander, the Village Scale Pyrolysis project has progressed to building an experimental kiln -- the first continuous slow pyrolysis unit at a U.S. university.

The kiln will allow researchers -- under the leadership of Elizabeth Fisher, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Al Center, lecturer in chemical and biomolecular engineering -- to study the reaction dynamics and evaluate how the kiln can be scaled up to meet the needs of an entire village.